One hopes that there are never any defensive errors by Saints players, but we must remember we got some good results against top sides last season and they made defensive errors as well. Preseason is about fitness and learning to play nicely together again. We would all have loved a victory because Schalke are a good CL quality team, but we are now one game nearer to season ready. As people are saying, most of us know this.
Lambert on Player says they got a lot from the game. He said, 'If we won 6.0, it wouldn't mean we were the best team in the world.' Said how fit he felt. Mentioned their last training camp: Best restaurant...I mean, best hotel I've seen. Freudian slip there, Rickie.
its not as simple as that, we dont have a team that can break down an oponent through the centre. This isnt solely the fault of the strikers i would argue but our cause would be aided if we had better strikers. not scoring through the centre is a serious indictment of how the team is set up and the footballing ability of our attackers. Lambert isnt going to get in behind, which is some of the problem, nut we should be able to formulate good chances through incisive passing and intelligent runs off the ball. Massive improvement in this area is required. Coupled with better finishing of course, something that will come with better chances i feel
Woah, pull the hand break. Your first post said we didn't create enough chances under Pochettino; my post told you the facts were that we created lots. Now you talk about goals.... are we just changing or tweaking our opinion to fit the stats? We need more goals, agreed. This is why I'd like another striker to shake things a little and give us another option. Those stats haven't gone anywhere. We created more chances than our opposition in every game bar one from whenever I looked it up under Pochettino.
Yea dont see why people are worrying, Schalke are a better side that us so losing in a pre-season friendly doesnt really bother me
I don't want to be rude, but what part of the stats that show we created more chance than our opponents in every game under Pochettino, bar one, do you not understand? We are creating chances and it doesn't matter if they are down the centre, volleys, headers, shot from 6 yards or 26 yards, we created chances. What we didn't do, was stick the round thing in the onion bag. I am not blaming the strikers (though Rickie didn't score in his last 6 games), but if scoring is an issue it makes sense to try and buy a striker to try something different to those we have tried. If it is about the type of chances being created, find a striker who thrives on that type of chance.
A small part of me is pleased we didn't because the schizo Saints fans would be announcing us as Champions. Results in pre-season games do not matter one tiny bit. It is about getting match sharpness read for the 17th August. How many times have teams whooped everyone in pre-season and then had a bad start? It is only about playing time, looking at different combinations and making assessments about players. Guly scored a hat-trick last week, but I really don't see him as the answer to our goal scoring needs.
I would also reiterate that we don't create good chances but I have no way of proving. Quoting the number of chances is almost meaningless when it gives no indication of the quality of chance, it's not a fact in the same way a goal is in any case.
Conversely, didn't we have a bad series of pre-season results two years ago before coming out and winning nine of the first ten? Glad that we're playing tough opposition, though I'm not sure that the somewhat bumpy (or perhaps it was just my stream that was bumpy) pitches of middle o' nowhere Austria helps to establish our passing fluidity.
We were also good at creating chances under Nige. Our problem is our conversion rate..however, I'd be more worried if we never created chances. In some games we clicked and got some great results. If it all comes together, heaven help the opposition. Mauricio had only half a season...be better able to judge after this season. Unlike 1012/13, I am praying for a decent start to give some breathing space for when we have a difficult patch.
If the chance is 1mm from goal though i would say the finishis a given. A high quality chance is the best thing you can hope for other than a goal imo. Logically you are correct though, and there probably isn't much logic in this argument when every movement on a football pitch can be important it depends on the context etc. Getting five people sent off is going to be more important than kicking 10 goals
I was a striker so I disagree 100%. Scoring that goal is the most important thing. Please explain what a "quality chance" is. To me a pass or an attack that ends up with a shot at goal from a reasonable scoring position is a good chance. Are you saying we don't create enough tap ins? I think you are just digging your heels in and being stubborn rather than saying "fair enough"
I am now worried I am debating football with you when you refer to that act as "kicking a goal" .. this ain't Rugger , old chap
Luke Shaw guilty again of ball watching and loosing his man in the box, the 04 player had a clear header in the first half. Shaw was guilty of doing the same thing last season so hoping its just a learning curve.
3 wins, 7 draws, 9 losses.. Lambert scored in the last game against Stoke and got 15 goals last season. We need midfielders that can score. 6 goals from the 2nd top scorer is laughably low especially considering most of their chances were from Lambert himself. He created more chances than any other player in the league other than Suarez and Silva! Lambert only got outscored by Van Persie, Suarez, Bale, Benteke, Michu and Lukaku last season whilst creating all those chances for teammates! They'd probably all cost over 30 million at this point in time but you are suggesting we buy a new striker? How about the midfield learn to score? In 4-2-3-1 the 3 midfielders in front of the holding midfielders have to score goals. They have much more freedom compared to 2 striker formations. At times we are playing 4-2-4 with the ball or an attacking 4-3-3 with the wingers pushing right up and still they don't chip in with many goals. Lallana's finishing and pissing about on the ball is embarrassing. I'd literally play myself over him on either wing it's got to that point.
There is degrees of chances, perhaps we created a strong amount of good chances, I'm not sure - it's possible we did but my memory of our time under pochettino was mostly scrappy half chances rather than passes to players in shooting positions. I analysed the goals that we did score and saw that only twice did we score from passes that weren't crosses, that's once every 8 games a goal was scored from a direct forward pass. Absolutely abysmal. I agree that our finishing isn't good enough but I refuse to let that hide the fact that we haven't been playing good enough football under pochettino. If a team didn't come out and attack we didn't win, liverpool, chelsea, man city and also reading looked to play attacking passing football. Every time a team looked to defend against us we dropped points. I believe pochettino is a very good manager but he failed every time a team came out to defend. Simply bringing in better finishers won't solve the problem imo. We need better off the ball movement ,creativity, and a much faster tempo to pick apart defensive teams.
You don't realise how many chances we were creating. We were having like 20 shots per game at one point. We seem to miss at least one or two clear-cut chances (and if some of them weren't classed as clear-cut in stats they were at least very good chances) every game and they almost always fall to a winger or the player playing CAM because most of the time they are created by Lambert. Whenever we have a clear-cut chance against us we get punished 90% of the time.
